Former Shin Bet spy chiefs urge Biden not to host Israel's Netanyahu

Former heads of Israel's spy agency Shin Bet are urging US President Joe Biden not to host Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House amid talk of a planned meeting between the two leaders.

Biden is expected to meet Netanyahu on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York later this month after the US said they would meet this year.

Netanyahu has been dogged with scandals since the establishment of his government - the most right-wing in Israel's history - mostly revolving around the words and actions of his two extremist ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

"An official visit of Netanyahu to Washington will be seen as legitimising the government coup that he is leading with the aim of weakening the judicial system and establishing an authoritarian regime in Israel," said Ami Ayalon, Shin Bet's spy chief between 1995 and 2000, according to Haaretz.

"We expect the U.S. president to make it clear that the alliance between us requires maintaining Israel's identity in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence."

Yuval Diskin, who preceded Ayalon as spy chief until 2011, said Biden should not meet Netanyahu in any capacity, until he shelves his controversial judicial overhaul.

"If this does not happen immediately, I fear these processes will become irreversible and result in strategic damage to the State of Israel and the American interests in the Middle East," he said.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu is causing severe damage to the strategic relationship between the US and Israel, as well as to the US strategic interests in the Middle East." 

Much of the Israeli political and security establishment have opposed changes to the judiciary, which will essentially centralise the levers of power in the hands of the government.

The proposed UN meeting, which Diskin, appears to oppose, followed a statement issued by Netanyahu in July that Biden had invited him to the US "soon", which Washington quickly rejected, saying the US president never extended an "invitation" to the PM, only that there would be a "meeting".

This appeared to downplay speculation of an official invitation to the White House for Netanyahu, who is reportedly furious about the delay which is almost unprecedented in US-Israeli relations.

Despite this, Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi claimed relations between the US and Israel were the best they have been in 40 years.

The US is also leading a controversial normalisation push between the US and Saudi Arabia, which would be a huge coup for Netanyahu if achieved.